First, let me answer the question that would compel 80% of you to come here, yes, we rode and stayed dry. You should have come. Jeff S came, as ride coordinator/route maker he is obligated to do. Strangely, he also left at 5:40, but left maps with the only two cyclists there, Mile Taylor, a former tri guy who had taken a year off and was making a comeback and me. At about 5 minutes until 6:00, a flurry of cars and cyclists swelled our ranks to 16 and I had to explain to an annoyed crowd why the ride leader had left them high and dry. I did the best I could but was soon drowned out by shouts of "Jeff is #%&%" and "Quitter" and various profane language. AT 6:04 I yelled for silence, announced the route and said for A, B, C, D and E riders to head out.

There were 9 A riders, including Tim Tyler and wife Lisa, Jon the dentist, Mick, Farmer Mike, Retro George, an A making his first appearance at New Albany this year and a couple others. During the warm up, I told Mick that Jamie had quit cycling, sidled up to Jon and told him too but the pace picked up and we were a line. I must say the reaction to Jamie's quit ranged from "I can't believe it" to "Good, he made me hurt too much" to "That's stupid". What can I say to those comments?

We headed out old 161 and for once, everyone took a pull, except for Farmer Mike, who at 67 doesn't have to, and Jon, who was saving himself for the Alexandria stop sign sprint I guess, oh and Tim, who prefers to hang off the back doing sprint intervals. Without a group killer, guess what..... yep, the group stayed together. We all rode into Alexandria feeling rather fresh. MikeT and I headed north on Northridge while Mick and George followed the Granville 4-some east until at some point I'm sure they realized they were following a group that was not going back to New Albany. One of these rides i have to remember to let everyone know about this. Mike and I rode back with skies starting to look threatening to the southwest but we stayed dry after a modest 31 miles. Oh yeah, Jamie sent me an email and said he had attended a spinning class where there were 4 very beautiful women, 2 fairly good looking ones, a guy who looked like Jamie did a year ago and some 70 year old dude. I was envious, considering at what I had been looking for the last hour and a half.